Racist abuse, sexual misconduct and drug and alcohol offences – these are some of the reasons why nearly 4,000 Camden, Haringey and Barnet pupils were excluded from schools last year.

The majority of permanent exclusions and suspensions were for physically assaulting another child or persistent disruptive behaviour during the 2014/2015 academic year, according to data released by the Department for Education (DfE) on Thursday.

But a minority were disciplined for offences such as theft and causing “damage”.

Seventy pupils were suspended from Barnet primary, secondary and special schools for drug and alcohol related offences – the second highest number in London.

It is considerably more than the neighbouring boroughs of Camden and Haringey, where 30 and 20 pupils were suspended for drugs and alcohol offences.

Meanwhile, of Barnet’s 40 permanent expulsions from secondary schools, five were for sexual misconduct – a term that covers sexual abuse, bullying and lewd behaviour. Another five were for assaulting a fellow pupil.

In Camden, nine of the 19 expelled from schools were punished for persistent disruptive behaviour.

The DfE could not provide a breakdown of reasons for all permanent exclusions in each borough to prevent children being identified when too few cases have been recorded in each category.

For this reason, Haringey could not reveal why any of its 16 pupils were permanently kicked out of schools that year, though it could disclose that none were expelled because of racist abuse or sexual misconduct.

However, 20 Haringey pupils – as well as 20 in Camden and in Barnet – were suspended over sexual misconduct.

A further 10 in Camden and in Haringey were given fixed-term exclusions for racist abuse, with the figure rising to 30 in Barnet.

The DfE rounds up figures to the nearest 10 to protect the identity of the children involved.

In total, 1,100 pupils were suspended from schools in Camden, 1,290 in Haringey and 1,500 in Barnet – about average compared with other London boroughs.